Places To Rest
by HalfshellVenus1
Summary: A series of 10 Gen drabbles through Season 4 on the lives of the Winchesters, mixing humor and drama.


Title: **Places To Rest**

Author: HalfshellVenus

Characters: Sam, Dean, John, others (**Gen, Drabbles, Drama, Humor, Angst**)

Rating: K+

Summary: (**_Spoilers through 4x01_**) Ten moments in the lives of the Winchesters.

Author's Notes: This is my _**Sweet Charity**_ story for **tsuki_no_bara**, who wanted a series of 10 drabbles spanning the Winchesters' lives, with the boys, John, Jess, Bobby, Ellen and perhaps Hendriksen. I got all of those in, and the mixture of drama and lightness, though I couldn't find a way to work in a hedgehog. I hope you like it all the same!

x-x-x-x-x

**I**

John is almost as worried the second time around—once Mary goes into the delivery room, anything can happen and he'll be helpless to stop it. Instead, he paces through the waiting room and phones Mrs. Adleby to check on Dean.

When the doctor calls his name—mask off and smiling—John feels his heart lift right off the floor. He joins Mary (breathless, beautiful), and cradles their baby. _Samuel_—his name is Samuel.

Dean is waiting with Mrs. Adelby when they get home.

"This is your brother." John holds Dean close and watches his eyes fill up with wonder.

.

**II**

Sam loves the motel rooms with little kitchens. They're like playhouses—everything you need in one room.

Sometimes they stay in apartments or houses. Sam hopes for bunk beds someday, so he and Dean can make forts. But he might have to sleep alone then. He can wait a little longer.

After days of driving, they come to a city. Daddy pulls in at a motel office, and Sam and Dean wait out in the car.

When they get to their room, Dean goes in first. "There's a stove!"

"Jiffy Pop!" Sam shouts.

Daddy just laughs. "Make yourselves at home."

.

**III**

In high school, Sam decides that Dean's embarrassing. Dad already was, apparently, though Sam kept that pretty damn quiet, but _him? _With the leather jacket and the awesome car? It's ridiculous.

He decides to make Sam pay.

"I'm Dean," he smiles for the girls. Sam looks mortified.

"Join me for target practice later?" Dean asks in front of Sam's friends.

At the end of the school day, Dean's waiting: "Hey Sammy, need a lift?" Sam just stares.

"Stay away from the school," Sam finally says.

"Why? Stealing your thunder?" Dean smirks.

"No. People think you're a cradle-robbing gun-toting freak."

_Oh_.

.

**IV**

His second year at Stanford, Sam meets Jess in French Lit class. They go out for coffee afterwards—he watches her hair and eyes sparkle in the sun, and wishes he'd met her years ago. Everything before then suddenly seems wasted.

They are different, but they fit together like harmony. He had this with Dean, though it was rough-edged near the end. Dean knew him to the bone, without understanding the things Sam truly wanted. Jess knows who he wants to be—_is_ already, _is_—but not who he was.

It's not perfect, but it's damn close.

It isn't lonely.

.

**V**

Dean's been living in fear since Dad disappeared, chasing clues without ever finding him. Even with Sam here, everything's fractured: Dad won't talk to them and Sam keeps threatening to leave again.

Dean's one bad day away from being completely alone.

When they find Dad in Chicago, it's all Dean can do not to cling like he's four all over again. It makes him ache.

He hates having to split up then, but it'll keep Dad safe. Standing in the shadows, bleeding and broken, Dean forces out that crushing goodbye and drives toward an unknown future in his father's car.

.

**VI **

They were at Bobby's a month—he could've said something. Or Dad, anytime in the last twenty years.

A message on Dad's cell phone is how Sam discovers that the hunter network is bigger than a few of Dad's crackpot friends.

"What the hell?" Sam says, as they pull up to The Roadhouse—an actual bar, in public and everything.

"It's practically a clubhouse," Dean gripes. "Probably with secret handshakes and a volume discount on silver bullets."

Sam finds the people inside friendly enough. But the owner—confident, husky-voiced and pretty—makes him wonder if Dad wasn't hiding _himself_ instead.

.

**VII**

Dad always said, _The details will get you_. Dean thought that meant having enough bullets or matches.

Later, he realizes it could mean _Going undercover in prison where Sammy winds up in a different cell_. Or maybe it's having the F.B.I. dude they ran from track him down while he can't leave.

"You think you're funny," GQ agent says.

"I think I'm adorable." Authority always hacks Dean off.

After planting false clues with his lawyer, Dean and Sam escape to take care of the ghost.

But they'll have to be more careful now.

Hendriksen is a detail Dean won't forget.

.

**VIII **

It's just a rabbit's foot—like you can buy at a gas station for a dollar. Two skinned knees and a lost shoe later, Sam has come to respect its evil power.

The 'lucky' part of it wasn't even that great. Some winning lottery-scratcher tickets (probably lost now—should have redeemed those right off the bat), and some incredibly embarrassing restaurant thing where they'll never show their faces again thanks to the publicity and being photographed.

Now Sam's stuck in a motel room, and it's on the attack.

If they find that rabbit's foot again, Sam swears he'll burn it.

.

**IX **

"Don't give up hope," Sam keeps saying over the last month, weeks, days.

What Dean doesn't tell him is that he never had much to begin with. He made his deal and the demon came through, and getting that extra year on top of Sam's life was more than he expected.

It doesn't make any of it easier.

"There has to be _something!_" Sam rages on the phone to Bobby when he thinks Dean can't hear.

The hardest thing isn't leaving (or what's waiting afterward, for all eternity). It's watching Sam's desperation and knowing that the end is already here.

.

**X **

This—the world or something else—is barren and dusty, and now it's _loud_. Dean flinches as the glass-shattering din courses through the air, leaving destruction behind.

Dean doesn't understand any of it. Sam's not answering his phone, and Dean hopes Bobby's at home so he's not driving there for nothing.

He can't help wondering if this is the same world he left.

Bobby's glad to see him (after the paranoid preliminaries) but it isn't enough.

It's not until that motel room door opens on Sam—God, it's really _Sam_—and he's holding him that Dean let himself _breathe_ again.

_-------- fin --------_


End file.
